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Integration and
Differentiation in the
European Union
Theory and Policies
Dirk Leuffen · Berthold Rittberger
Frank Schimmelfennig
Integration and Differentiation in the European
Union
Dirk Leuffen · Berthold Rittberger ·
Frank Schimmelfennig
Integration
and Differentiation
in the European
Union
Theory and Policies
Dirk Leuffen Berthold Rittberger
Department of Politics Department of Political Science
and Public Administration Ludwig-Maximilians-University
University of Konstanz Munich, Germany
Konstanz, Germany
Frank Schimmelfennig
Center for Comparative
and International Studies
ETH Zurich
Zurich, Switzerland
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer
Nature Switzerland AG 2022
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Preface to the 2nd edition
When we started writing the first edition of this book, the EU seemed
well on track. The Lisbon Treaty had entered into force and the big
bang of Eastern enlargement appeared well digested. The euro crisis at
first appeared to be a punctuation, an exception to the broader trend of
both consolidation and differentiation of the integration process. Almost
a decade has passed since then, and rather than experiencing a period
of consolidation, it has been a decade of internal and external crises in
rapid succession. First, the UK voters’ decision to leave the EU was a
shock to the integration project, by making disintegration become real.
Brexit and the new EU-UK relations certainly underline the importance
of looking at the integration of outside states into the EU, a relation we
termed ‘external differentiation’ in the first edition. Second, the so-called
refugee crisis with its peak in 2015 revealed structural shortcomings in the
Area of Freedom, Security, and Justice. The negotiations on a mandatory
refugee relocation scheme resulted in gridlock, highlighting the severe
ideological divisions among EU member states. Seemingly, unsurmount-
able tensions between supranational demands for solidarity and burden
sharing and the constraints imposed by domestic politics and politiciza-
tion became apparent. Third, the Crimean crisis, the presidency of Donald
Trump, and the rise of China in world politics underlined the need for
closer European cooperation in external affairs. While we diagnose some
changes in this area, the factual development of the Common Foreign and
Security Policy still lags behind declaratory ambitions. Fourth, the Corona
v
vi PREFACE TO THE 2ND EDITION
1 Introduction 1
A Story of Integration—and Differentiation 1
Differentiated Integration in EU Studies 7
The How and Why of Differentiated Integration: A Preview 8
Structure of the Book 17
References 19
2 The European Union as a System of Differentiated
Integration 21
Between International Organization and State 22
Membership 22
Delimitation 24
Authority 25
Governance Capacity 26
Legitimacy 27
Differentiated Integration 29
Measuring Differentiated Integration 33
Mapping Differentiated Integration 40
Differentiation: A Persistent Feature of European
Integration 46
References 48
ix
x CONTENTS
Part I Theory
3 Intergovernmentalism 63
From Realist to Liberal Intergovernmentalism 63
Rationalist Institutionalism 66
General Assumptions: International Interdependence
and Rational Choice 66
Explanatory Theories: The Functional Theory
of Institutions, Endogenous Trade Theory, Bargaining
Theory, and Club Theory 67
Intergovernmentalism and European Integration 70
National Preferences 70
Interstate Bargaining 72
Institutional Choice 74
General Hypotheses 75
Intergovernmentalism and Differentiated Integration 77
Realist Intergovernmentalism: Autonomy-Driven
Differentiated Integration 78
Liberal Intergovernmentalism: Heterogeneity
of Interdependence, Interests, and Capacities 79
The Supply Side of Differentiated Integration: Size,
Externalities and Bargaining Power 82
Conjectures 84
Self-Test and Discussion Questions 85
Further Reading 86
References 87
4 Supranationalism 89
General Assumptions: Boundedly Rational Actors
in a Path-Dependent Process of Institutionalization 91
Explaining the Dynamics of Integration 94
Supranationalism and European Integration 97
Spillover 98
The Constitutionalization of the Treaties 100
European Integration and Path Dependence 103
General Hypotheses 104
Supranationalism and Differentiated Integration 106
Intensity of Transnational Exchange 107
Capacity and Preferences of Supranational actors 110
Conjectures 111
CONTENTS xi
Part II Policies
7 The Single Market 177
The Development of the Single Market 180
The Treaties of Rome 180
The Single European Act 181
After the SEA 185
Horizontal Integration 186
Conclusion of the Historical Overview 188
Intergovernmentalism 190
The Beginnings of Integration: Post-World War II
Europe, Economic Interdependence 191
Integrative Dynamics: Growing Interdependence
and Preference Convergence Before the SEA 193
(Differentiated) Horizontal Integration 195
Supranationalism 200
The Beginnings of Integration: Transnational Exchanges
and the EEC Treaty 201
Explaining the Single Market Programme:
Transnational Exchanges, Institutionalization,
and Spillover 203
Horizontal Integration and Differentiation 205
Constructivism 206
The Beginnings of Integration: Ideas Matter 206
Integrative Dynamics: Shared Understandings
of Common Challenges 207
(Differentiated) Horizontal Integration: Constructivism 209
Postfunctionalism 210
Postfunctionalism and the Single Market 211
Conclusion 214
Self-Test and Discussion Questions 217
Further Reading 218
References 218
8 Economic and Monetary Union 223
The Development of Monetary and Fiscal Integration 225
The Bretton Woods system 225
The Snake and the European Monetary System 227
Economic and Monetary Union 230
The Eurozone Crisis and the Reform of EMU 233
CONTENTS xiii
Conclusion 238
Intergovernmentalism 239
Realist Intergovernmentalism: Monetary Integration
to Increase State Autonomy? 240
Liberal Intergovernmentalism: Interdependence,
Preference Convergence, and Credible Commitments 242
Differentiated Horizontal Integration 246
Differentiated Vertical Integration 249
Integration in the Eurozone Crisis 250
Supranationalism 253
EMU: Spillover and Transnational Networks 254
Horizontal and Vertical Differentiation 256
From Differentiation to Uniformity? 258
Transnational Interdependence and Supranational
Capacity in the Eurozone Crisis 259
Constructivism 262
EMU: Macroeconomic Policy Consensus 263
Differentiated Integration 265
Vertical Integration in the Eurozone Crisis: Socialization
and Learning? 266
Postfunctionalism 268
Integration and Differentiation in Macroeconomic
Policies 269
Postfunctionalism and Integration in the Eurozone
Crisis 271
Conclusion 273
Self-Test and Discussion Questions 277
Further Reading 278
References 278
9 Security and Defence 281
The Development of Security and Defence Policy in the EU 282
A Bold Move: The Pleven Plan and the EDC 283
De Gaulle’s ‘certaine Idée’ and the Fouchet Plans 286
Informal Intergovernmental Coordination: The EPC 288
Picking up Speed: Maastricht, Amsterdam, and the CFSP 290
Change of Tide: St Malo, ESDP, and CSDP 292
The 2010s: Times of External and Internal Turbulence 295
Conclusion 299
xiv CONTENTS
Postfunctionalism 368
Conclusion 369
Self-Test and Discussion Questions 372
Further Reading 372
References 373
11 Conclusion: Integration and Differentiation
in the European Union 377
Differentiated Integration in the European Union 380
Evaluating the Theories 381
Assumptions and Expectations 382
Vertical Integration and Differentiation 383
Horizontal Integration and Differentiation 390
A Synthetic Framework 394
Common Ground 395
Scope Conditions 398
Summary 401
Where Do We Go from Here? 403
References 404
References 407
Index 429
Abbreviations
xvii
xviii ABBREVIATIONS
EU European Union
EUMC European Union Military Committee
EUMS European Union Military Staff
GDP Gross Domestic Product
HG Headline Goals
HHG Helsinki Headline Goals
IGC Intergovernmental Conference
IMF International Monetary Fund
IO International Organization
IR International Relations
JHA Justice and Home Affairs
LI Liberal Intergovernmentalism
MEP Member of the European Parliament
NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization
OECD Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
OEEC Organization for European Economic Cooperation
OLP Ordinary Legislative Procedure
PESCO Permanent Structured Cooperation
PSC Political and Security Committee
RI Realist Intergovernmentalism
SEA Single European Act
SGP Stability and Growth Pact
TEU Treaty on European Union
TFEU Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union
US United States
USA United States of America
WEU Western European Union
WHO World Health Organization
WTO World Trade Organization
F France
FIN Finland
GR Greece
HR Croatia
HU Hungary
I Italy
IRL Ireland
IS Iceland
L Luxembourg
LT Lithuania
LV Latvia
M Malta
N Norway
NL Netherlands
P Portugal
PL Poland
RO Romania
S Sweden
SK Slovakia
SLO Slovenia
TR Turkey
UK United Kingdom
List of Figures
xxi
List of Tables
xxiii
List of Boxes
xxv
CHAPTER 1
Introduction
participate, but have not been allowed into in the Schengen club, because
some member states continue to block their entry. In principle, Cyprus is
also expected to join the Schengen border regime but the division of the
island remains a major obstacle. By contrast, four non-member states—
Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, and Switzerland—are full members of
the Schengen area. Croatia has a special arrangement for passport-free
travel of its citizens to the neighbouring EU member states. In addition,
visa requirements were abolished for the other Western Balkan countries
(except Kosovo) in 2009 and 2010. Similar to the vertical differentiation
between monetary and fiscal policy in the Economic and Monetary Union
(EMU), we find a discrepancy between rather strongly integrated travel
and migration policies, and more weakly integrated judicial and police
cooperation.
The euro and Schengen are only the most prominent examples of
how the expansion of tasks, competences, and membership in Euro-
pean integration has developed side by side with differentiation across
issue areas and countries. Horizontal differentiation both within the EU
and beyond its organizational borders has become a pervasive feature of
the EU. The Treaty of Amsterdam of 1997 first introduced ‘enhanced
cooperation’, a general procedure for formal differentiated integration
in EU legislation. In July 2010, the EU authorized its first use when
14 member states moved forward to cooperate more closely on divorce
rules for transnational couples. Another application is the introduction of
the EU Patent by 25 member states (circumventing Italian and Spanish
opposition against the proposed language regime). However, there is
much more differentiation in secondary law than the few instances of
enhanced cooperation suggest—especially in EMU, in the area of interior
and justice policies, as well as in defence policy.
Differentiation is also a typical by-product of enlargement. Accession
treaties usually contain a host of transitional arrangements that qualify the
membership rights of the new entrants or exempt them from applying
EU rules for a certain time. The acceding member states of Central and
Eastern Europe, for instance, had to accept that the free movement of
workers could be limited for their citizens by the old member states for
up to seven years after accession. In return, the new member states were
granted transitional exemptions (e.g. with regard to the application of EU
environmental or agricultural standards). But transitional arrangements
from the accession treaties are just that—transitional. They typically expire
a few years after new member states joined the EU.
4 D. LEUFFEN ET AL.
and Switzerland are not on the verge of accession even as they increasingly
adapt to the EU’s rules.
There are also theoretical reasons to assume that European integra-
tion will remain differentiated. Differentiated integration is intrinsically
linked to increasing heterogeneity among European states. The expan-
sion of Community tasks and competences is one cause of heterogeneity.
It is relatively easy for member states to agree on abolishing tariffs and
creating a single market, as such policies are generally perceived to benefit
the economies of all member states. It is more controversial to agree
on directly redistributive (social) policies that imply massive fiscal trans-
fers or to negotiate monetary and security policies that affect the core
of sovereign state powers. The more the EU moves into such areas, the
more it meets diverging interests and heightened resistance. Moreover, it
is easier for the member states to agree on intergovernmental cooperation
than on supranational centralization, because of the limits it imposes on
member state autonomy. The more that European integration deepens,
the more likely it meets opposition by societies and governments eager to
protect their identity and sovereignty. In other words, increasing identity
and sovereignty costs increase anti-integrationist politicization.
The expansion of Community membership is another cause of growing
heterogeneity. European integration started with a set of countries most
willing to integrate, and comparatively similar in socio-economic struc-
ture and economic and administrative capabilities. As the Community
enlarged, it admitted countries that were less enthusiastic about Euro-
pean federalism, had different beliefs and interests, or were less capable of
meeting the demands of market and policy integration.
Politicization has added to the trend towards differentiation. In the
first decades of European integration, policy-making was an elite affair:
policies were negotiated among governments, facilitated by package deals,
and integration benefited from a ‘permissive consensus’ that character-
ized member state societies. Since the 1990s, however, integration has
become more politicized. Eurosceptic parties and movements have prolif-
erated in the member states and have mobilized the economic losers of
integration as well as those who cherish national identity and sovereignty.
The politicization of European integration has become most influential
in national referendums on EU treaties, and many opt-outs are a result
of actual or anticipated negative votes. From this perspective, it is no
surprise that differentiation has increased tremendously since the early
1990s when the Community embarked on a new phase of ambitious task
6 D. LEUFFEN ET AL.
states have opted out from it. The migration crisis of 2015 brought
the Schengen/Dublin regime to the brink of breakdown, but in spite
of several restrictions, disintegration was prevented. In contrast to the
eurozone, the crisis did not lead to additional vertical integration in
the AFSJ.
• Finally, vertical integration in defence policy is not only a latecomer,
but has also remained at a low level. Defence policy is, furthermore,
the least horizontally differentiated of the policies we compare in
this book. Only Denmark has fully opted out of this policy, and
non-member states do not participate formally. At the same time,
the ‘permanent structured cooperation’ (PESCO), the policy-specific
scheme of enhanced cooperation, has gained momentum recently
with the Council proposing a plethora of projects, suitable for a closer
moving together of willing EU member states in the area of defence
capability development.
In the policy chapters of this book, we apply these theories to the Single
Market, the Economic and Monetary Union, the Area of Freedom, Secu-
rity, and Justice as well as Security and Defence. We argue that none of
the established integration theories fully explains the complex processes
and patterns of differentiated integration. Roughly speaking, intergov-
ernmentalism establishes a useful baseline model. Moreover, it provides a
satisfactory account of the initial stages of integration; it has difficulties,
however, capturing the endogenous dynamics of subsequent integration.
Intergovernmentalism further struggles to account for identity-driven
processes of politicization that generate patterns of horizontal differ-
entiation. For these developments, supranationalist, constructivist and
postfunctionalist integration theories provide important insights.
In line with this observation, the synthetic explanation that we develop
in this book starts from an intergovernmental analytical framework. Inte-
gration theories generally agree that governments remain key actors in
the integration process, as they negotiate integration outcomes, which
are then submitted to national ratification processes. Demand for inte-
gration is primarily created by international interdependence. At the
same time, whether and how this demand translates to integration is
conditioned by domestic preferences, international preference constella-
tions, states’ bargaining power, and the agenda-setting and policy-shaping
powers of supranational institutions. As integration progresses, demand
becomes more endogenous and the relevance of supranational institu-
tions increases. Once integration reaches a critical level of centralization,
the path of integration bifurcates. If politicization remains low, integration
is likely to progress further. If politicization is high, but states are highly
vulnerable to interdependence, we are likely to see more integration, too.
Otherwise, high politicization produces stagnation or differentiation.
International interdependence is the fundamental driving force of inte-
gration. Interdependence means that it is impossible for states to solve
certain problems or achieve certain goals unilaterally. Oftentimes societal
actors are the first to become aware of interdependence. When they are
1 INTRODUCTION 13
References
Adler-Nissen, Rebecca. 2014. Opting out of the European Union: Diplomacy,
Sovereignty and European Integration. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Bellamy, Richard, and Sandra Kröger. 2017. A Democratic Justification of Differ-
entiated Integration in a Heterogeneous EU. Journal of European Integration
39 (5): 625–639.
Duttle, Thomas, Katharina Holzinger, Thomas Malang, et al. 2017. Opting Out
from European Union Legislation: The Differentiation of Secondary Law.
Journal of European Public Policy 24 (3): 406–428.
Genschel, Philipp, and Markus Jachtenfuchs, eds. 2014. Beyond the Regula-
tory Polity. The European Integration of Core State Powers. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Haas, Ernst B. 1968. The Uniting of Europe. Political, Social, and Economic Forces
1950–1957 . Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Heermann, Max, and Dirk Leuffen. 2020. No Representation without Inte-
gration! Why Differentiated Integration Challenges the Composition of the
European Parliament. Journal of Common Market Studies 58 (4): 1016–1033.
Holzinger, Katharina, and Frank Schimmelfennig. 2012. Differentiated Integra-
tion in the European Union: Many Concepts, Sparse Theory, Few Data.
Journal of European Public Policy 19 (2): 292–305.
Hoffmann, Stanley. 1966. Obstinate or Obsolete? The Fate of the Nation State
and the Future of Western Europe. Daedalus 95 (4): 861–898.
Kölliker, Alkuin. 2001. Bringing Together or Driving Apart the Union? Towards
a Theory of Differentiated Integration. West European Politics 24 (4): 125–
151.
Kölliker, Alkuin. 2006. Flexibility and European Unification: The Logic of
Differentiated Integration. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
Kroll, Daniela A., and Dirk Leuffen. 2015. Enhanced Cooperation in Practice.
An Analysis of Differentiated Integration in EU Secondary Law. Journal of
European Public Policy 22 (3): 353–373.
Lord, Christopher. 2015. Utopia or Dystopia? Towards a Normative Analysis of
Differentiated Integration. Journal of European Public Policy 22 (6): 783–798.
Schimmelfennig, Frank, and Thomas Winzen. 2020. Ever Looser Union? Differ-
entiated European Integration. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Schimmelfennig, Frank, Dirk Leuffen, and Berthold Rittberger. 2015. The Euro-
pean Union as a System of Differentiated Integration: Interdependence,
Politicization, and Differentiation. Journal of European Public Policy 22 (6):
764–782.
Stubb, Alexander C. 1996. A Categorization of Differentiated Integration.
Journal of Common Market Studies 34: 283–295.
Vollaard, Hans. 2018. European Disintegration. A Search for Explanations.
Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
CHAPTER 2
Membership
States are composed of citizens who mostly acquire their citizenship or
nationality by birth. It is rare for individuals to change their citizenship
or to be a citizen of more than one country. By contrast, the members
of international organizations are states. The individual is not a subject
of classic international law. Moreover, states become members of inter-
national organizations on a voluntary, contractual basis—usually by an
international treaty. States are free to leave an international organization
(although this is rather rare) and usually belong to many international
organizations.
The EU’s membership regime is that of an international organization.
Only states can become EU members. Accession is voluntary. It results
from an accession treaty that needs to be ratified by all member states
2 THE EUROPEAN UNION AS A SYSTEM … 23
Fig. 2.1 The EU: between state and international organization (Source own
illustration)
and the candidate state. The member states are also free, in principle, to
leave the EU. The most recent of the EU’s treaty revisions, the Treaty
of Lisbon, formally introduced an exit procedure (Article 50), which was
triggered for the first time by the UK in 2017. In contrast to other inter-
national organizations, there is an EU citizenship, as well. Among other
things, the EU accords its citizens the right of free movement and resi-
dence throughout the EU, and the right to vote and stand in local and
European elections in any member state. Yet, EU citizenship is derivative
of and subordinated to national citizenship. Individuals acquire EU citi-
zenship as an automatic consequence of citizenship in any of its member
states, and the Treaty stipulates that EU citizenship shall supplement
rather than replace national citizenship.
24 D. LEUFFEN ET AL.
Delimitation
The system of states is a territorially delimited system. The borders
between states are physical, geographical lines. State territories are also
generally exclusive and exhaustive. It is rare for (land) territories to be
governed by two or more states at the same time, or by no state at
all. By the same token, states are functionally integrated. They possess
the authority to deal with all areas of public policy on their territory:
external and internal security, economy and welfare, individual rights and
freedoms. By contrast, international organizations are typically function-
ally delimited. Their authority is mostly task-specific: the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization (NATO) is a security organization, the World Trade
Organization (WTO) covers trade and the World Health Organization
(WHO) deals with public health issues. Obviously, the borders between
these organizations are institutional rather than physical, and their compe-
tences are partially overlapping. For instance, both NATO and the United
Nations Security Council may be involved in the same security issue either
in cooperation or in competition, and both the WTO and World Intellec-
tual Property Organization regulate intellectual property rights. Whereas
states tend to integrate all task-specific competences on a single territory,
(global) international organizations strive to regulate one specific issue for
multiple territories.
In this respect, the EU is more like a state than an international organi-
zation. The EU has a clearly demarcated (and fairly contiguous) territory,
as well as a physical border. People enter the EU much as they would
enter the United States of America—and not as they would ‘enter’ the
WTO or NATO. European integration has also thoroughly transformed
border regimes among its member states. Borders between member states
have largely lost their traditional functions as barriers to the free move-
ment of persons and goods, except in times of crisis. In many places, they
look more like borders between administrative districts within a state,
rather than traditional borders between states. By contrast, the borders
between member states and non-member states have become external EU
borders at which the EU’s border regime is applied.
The EU covers all policy fields: having started as an economic orga-
nization, it has expanded into all areas of public policy including foreign
policy, internal and external security, and the protection of civil and social
rights. Although its competences vary from issue-area to issue-area, there
is hardly a field of policy-making that is not regulated and affected in some
2 THE EUROPEAN UNION AS A SYSTEM … 25
way by the EU. In contrast to the typical state the territorial extension is
not the same for all policies: the European Research Area is larger than
the internal market, which is again larger than the eurozone. That territo-
rial extension varies by functional regime is characteristic of international
organizations—and a core feature of the EU as system of differentiated
integration that we will discuss in more detail below.
Authority
The modern state is sovereign—regardless of whether sovereignty ulti-
mately rests with the people, an autocratic class, or a dictator. Its
relationship to its citizen-members is hierarchical. The state alone has the
authority to make and enforce laws that are binding for all people living
on its territory. International organizations do not have these attributes
of sovereignty. Their powers derive from the consent of the member
states, which do not give up their individual sovereignty upon founding or
joining an international organization. The relationship between the inter-
national organization and its members (as well as among the members
themselves) is anarchical: every state has no master other than itself.
Rather than being subordinated to an international organization, the
member states coordinate their policies within its institutional framework.
Decision-making is typically based on intergovernmental consensus. The
member state executives that participate in international policy-making
are not checked and balanced at the international level by parliamentary
(citizen) representations or by independent judiciaries. Adherence to the
rules of an international regime is voluntary, and international law is typi-
cally soft law. Many rules are not legally binding and, even if they are,
their interpretation and the settlement of disputes are subject to negoti-
ations between the member states. Third-party adjudication is rare—and
mostly voluntary, where it exists.
To qualify as sovereign, the EU would have to be able to decide
its constitutional order autonomously. Yet, its basic principles and rules
remain treaty-based, and the member states remain the ‘masters of the
treaties’. Any change in the EU’s formal ‘constitution’ needs to be nego-
tiated among the member governments, agreed by unanimity, and ratified
in each member state. This is typical for international organizations.
Short of sovereignty, however, the EU’s institutions resemble those
of a state. First and foremost, its legal system is highly integrated. The
EU produces legislation taking direct effect in the member states and
26 D. LEUFFEN ET AL.
Governance Capacity
International organizations have weak policy-making capacity. Whereas in
states, including most federal states, the centre normally has the strongest
administration and receives the biggest share of state revenues, the
bureaucracies of international organizations are typically small, weak, and
without independent income, let alone the power of taxation. Whereas
the modern welfare state can use its powers to intervene in the economy
and engage in redistribution, international organizations typically focus
on regulatory policies: they make rules that coordinate and constrain the
actions of states, rather than intervening directly in market or social rela-
tions. And, whereas the state has the monopoly of the legitimate use of
force, international organizations do not have the means to physically
coerce their members into compliance with their rules.
Another random document with
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earned seventy-five dollars a month, put her baby out to nurse and
returned to the White House, where we got regular reports as to the
progress of the invalid and the infant, each of whom proceeded to do
as well as could be expected.
The other servants in the White House are paid the usual wages,
from twenty-five to fifty dollars, and are no more and no less efficient
than other good houseworkers in other homes. The entire White
House staff is paid by the Government, the only private servants in
our employ being a Filipino valet who had been with Mr. Taft for a
number of years, and my personal maid.